Author Archive

With some toy cars and a few simple, inexpensive materials, you can build ramps and incline tunnels with your kids to study the effects of incline on velocity.
Ramps can be constructed with rain gutters (which you can pick up from any home supply store for about $5), cardboard mailing tubes, or paper towel tube rolls that have been cut in half length-wise. Pool noodles can also work with the smallest toy cars or, if they are too narrow, you can use marbles, instead of cars. Create at least two ramps of the same length. First, give your child some time to set up the ramps and race cars down. Then ask, “What do you think will happen if one of the ramps is higher?”

Money provides a perfect, authentic opportunity to explore mathematics. Not only does each coin and bill have an assigned value, currency also makes a great math manipulative for sorting, counting, comparing, measuring, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and eventually using fractions, decimals, percentages, and more.

Around my house, “Can we order pizza?” is a common request. If your kids enjoy pizza, they’ll devour pizza math. When it comes to building math vocabulary and an understanding of fractions, this activity is quite filling.

“Mom, this toy broke, can you buy me a new one?” “Dad, I really want this new game, will you buy it for me?” Sound familiar?
Think of these questions as mathematics learning opportunities. They open to door to discussions about the value of money. Finding real-world applications is one of the easiest ways to get kids excited about learning and it does not get more authentic than earning and saving money.

Have you noticed the fireflies lighting up the summer night sky? Fireflies, also called lightning bugs, are beetles and are one of the few insects parents actually allow their children to bring inside the house. There are about 2,000 different species of fireflies. Here’s a fun firefly craft that can spark Bedtime Math fun!